


Discovery

by whereismygarden



Category: Stargate Universe
Genre: M/M, POV Alternating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-02
Updated: 2015-03-02
Packaged: 2018-03-15 22:06:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3463769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whereismygarden/pseuds/whereismygarden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Secrets may not stay that way on Destiny.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Discovery

**Author's Note:**

> Note: A few slurs are present in the text.

**Camile**

                She was doing paperwork, going over the schedules of classes and meetings to accommodate as many people as possible. The colonel was, for good reason, insistent on as many people as possible learning to manage Destiny’s systems, and every member of the science team seemed to have an opinion on the best way to teach them, from Rush’s “Get Brody to walk them through it,” to Park’s rapid-fire dictation of lesson plans that she apparently composed while she spoke. She almost had passable files on everyone, now, which was making it easier for her to match people to tasks.

                The low buzz of conversation from two tables down from where she had her papers spread out would have been unintelligible in the mess, but this room they’d converted to a rec room/common area—someone, Brody probably, had made the start of what could end up as couches, if someone else made cushions—was twisted, with strange acoustics. The little discussion would have probably passed by unnoticed, but she caught the word “fag,” given a snarled twist, and tuned in reflexively. It was Corporal Graham and Airman Weber, having some sort of argument.

                “I don’t think that can be right,” Weber was saying. There was a sound like a cross between an exasperated sigh and a grunt from Graham. “The colonel was _married._ ”

                “Young is _for sure_ a faggot, and he is _for sure_ fucking one of the geeks.” Camile tried not to grind her teeth, because it wasn’t her job to eavesdrop, or reprimand the military personnel. She felt the prickles of rage that had plagued her since she was a teenager flare up. Dr. Xiaoyi had told her once that all diplomats were angry inside, and though she didn’t really like the woman, that had always felt right.

                She was saved from either leaving or stewing herself into an upset stomach by a low, dangerous voice, whose owner she hadn’t even heard enter.

                “Corporal Graham, do you have a problem you’d like to discuss?” Sergeant Greer’s slow, danger-edged question was met with silence. “Because if you have an issue with any of the officers, you take it up the chain. To me.” More silence. “I don’t like to hear language like that on this ship. So make sure you don’t use it.” There was the scrape of a chair as someone resettled.

                “Yeah, and what if it’s true?” Graham asked sullenly.

                “The answer is, the colonel’s personal life is none. Of your. Fucking. Business. His orders are.” Camile could practically see the angry smile on Greer’s face, and she heard him saunter off, no doubt without looking back.

                She turned back to her paperwork, turning over the exchange, and the speculation.

**Eli**

                Astonishingly, being stuck on a spaceship at the edge—such as it was—of the universe had made Eli’s sleep habits _better_. He slept less, for sure, but he slept consistently. Unless there was a crisis, which, granted, was often. However, old habits died hard, and sometimes not at all, because he’d accidentally pulled an all-nighter switching between messing around on his laptop and doing actual coding for Volker’s pet project. He was currently yawning his way through the corridors, looking forward to at least a few hours before he was actually needed for anything. And possibly a few hours after that.

                It was four thirty, so when a door to his right swished open, he jerked back and nearly dropped his laptop, heart pounding. The shadowy figure emerging from Young’s quarters resolved itself into Dr. Rush, who was glaring at him.

                “What the hell?” he managed. “You can’t just—open doors.” Rush raised one eyebrow at him for that comment, and turned to stalk off down the hallway. Eli rubbed at his face, something catching up to him slowly. If _literally anyone else_ had been coming out of Young’s room at four in the morning, he would have thought to say something, but this had thrown him off his game completely. What was Rush doing in Young’s room in the middle of the night? Well, there was the obvious answer, but no. That did not bear thinking about, because Young had almost _killed_ him once, and they _hated_ each other.  

                Probably, they were just having a meeting. At four. Neither of them seemed like they slept too well, maybe they were having their meetings at night now.

                Yeah, that sounded stupid, even with his rationalizations. He groaned aloud and continued shuffling down the corridor.

                No _else_ ’s door had better open unexpectedly, or he was going to have nightmares, and he really needed his sleep.

**Scott**

                Matthew generally slept well, but he slept better with Chloe there. He kept her nightmares away, and she had a similar effect on him. It wasn’t that he had nightmares as bad as hers, by any means, but sometimes the landscape of his dreams turned into dark forests, or barren dunes, or dim corridors, and he was forever chasing his son through them.

                At the moment, Chloe was likely doing her early morning yoga: she had offered to teach a class, but she liked to get up and do it alone, to meditate. He got up: another hour wasn’t much, and he was on shift starting at eight anyway. Usually she went to the observation deck, so that was where he headed. He could see the appeal of watching the aurora-like streams of FTL light flow by early in the morning: the closest they had to a sunrise.

                Chloe was not in the observation deck. Colonel Young was in the observation deck, leaning forward on the railing, and Matthew almost stepped forward to greet him. He didn’t, though, because a half-second after he saw the colonel, he saw that he wasn’t alone. Dr. Rush was standing directly in front of him, and they were mirroring each other’s poses so that their arms touched all the way down to the railings, and the colonel’s face was half pressed against the back of Rush’s head as they stared outward.

                They were completely still; he could hear Rush’s light tenor and the colonel’s occasional, deeper response, but couldn’t distinguish their words. Matthew was evaluating his options for the quietest retreat from the doorway, unable to look away; he had never seen either man so still in the other’s presence. Young tilted his head to the side and forward, so that he was resting his chin on Rush’s shoulder, shoulders relaxing just slightly.

                The bottom of Matthew’s stomach dropped a little; this was shockingly intimate, as if he had walked in on them kissing. Something private, that he shouldn’t be here for, even accidentally. He backed up quickly. Chloe perhaps had gone to the mess instead, for Becker’s latest try at tea. He decided to take a route that wouldn’t necessitate even passing the entrance to the deck.

**TJ**

                TJ would never be over Young, not completely, but she knew that she could go along without him. They would always be linked, the same way that he was linked to his ex-wife: the traces of love would thin and fade, but never disappear. He could smile at her and her stomach wouldn’t turn to a cold mess of longing, now. She had Varro, now, sort of: he liked her, and she liked him, and soon enough they would start moving out of their holding pattern. That didn’t mean she didn’t notice Young anymore: she had been watching him for a long time, after all. He was easy to notice, at least for her.

                There was something different about him, lately. He walked so often with his shoulders tense and forward, head bent to the deck plating, but that had lessened, to an extent. The pain that was layered under his hazel eyes seemed to have dissipated as well. He moved more like he had moved back on Earth, when she had first known him. Looser, easier, in a way that TJ couldn’t help but associate with sex. That was how he had moved with her; it was unnerving that she still recognized that ease in him. One of her aunts had told her (while encouraging her to be circumspect and cautious in the men she slept with, and look how well that had worked out) that you took everyone you’d ever slept with into bed with you, every time. She wondered, in a mix of detached curiosity and honest jealousy, whose bed Young was bringing her ghost into. A large portion of her didn’t want to know.

                It was her uneasy privilege to know a great deal about who was sleeping with whom aboard Destiny: as de facto doctor, she dispensed what they had left of Earth contraceptives and worked on new ones. She had not seen Young, but she knew. It hadn’t been so long.

**Greer**

                Ron wasn’t sure why the colonel’s radio was off. He always left it on, even when he was off shift.

                “Maybe he doesn’t want to be bothered,” James said pointedly, when Scott shrugged his shoulders helplessly and admitted he didn’t know what to do in this situation. “It’s not an immediate thing,” she continued. “Just wait until he’s back on shift.”

                “Sergeant, will you check the colonel’s quarters?” Scott asked instead. “What if something happened to him? What if he’s sick too?” James didn’t say anything further, and Ron headed in the direction of the colonel’s quarters. The man needed his sleep, but this odd fever that had already infected James and Becker was worrying.

                He knocked quickly and opened the door, hoping he wouldn’t find the colonel sweating and sick. The swoosh of the doors opened onto the sight of Rush on the couch, and even if he hadn’t known it was Young’s quarters, the dark shape kneeling between Rush’s legs was distinctive. No one else besides Brody had hair like that, and Brody sure as hell didn’t wear a black USAF uniform. Rush had his hand clenched in Young’s hair, and his eyes sharpened with rage as he met Ron’s gaze.

                “Shit,” Young’s voice was low and dark and wrecked, and he didn’t turn around. Ron really wanted to leave the room and not think about what he’d just seen. Rush ran his hand down to Young’s neck, a gesture that made Ron shudder, though not as much as the fact that his commanding officer was on his knees undoubtedly sucking Rush’s dick three seconds ago made him shudder.

                “We have something of a situation, sir. Sorry to interrupt,” he said, staring at the wall to his right. It was nice and blank. Then he stepped backward out of the room, slamming down on the door control.

                Jesus. It was one thing to tell off gossips in the mess, it was another to walk in on the colonel doing _that_. With Rush, the most untrustworthy person on this ship.

                He hurried back to the infirmary, where TJ was still preoccupied with blood samples, and James looked paler and more bloodless than before.

                “He was busy,” Ron reported. “But I think he’ll be along soon.” He reminded himself that Young’s life was none of his business either, even if it involved Rush, and when the colonel came along ten minutes later, face as set and impassive as ever, Ron saluted.

**Chloe**

                One of the silver linings to the changes that had been done to her was that she was healthier. Not in terms of her daily experience, but her resistance to sickness was higher than it had ever been on Earth. It made Chloe ideally suited to helping TJ in the infirmary whenever an away team came back with something.

                This last bout had left Becker, James, Brody, Dunning, Young, and three others sweating and half-conscious in the infirmary, faces pale and breath labored. TJ had had to administer adrenaline to James when her breathing stopped, and Matthew had come to give Becker a blood transfusion. The others were mostly unresponsive, needing IVs hung and eyes checked and sometimes a turn on the Ancient oxygen tank when they had difficulty breathing.

                TJ was at her desk now, looking through the results of blood tests on the computer. She had finally managed to get one of the more obscure machines working, and was comparing proteins and domains. Chloe wasn’t sure how that would help, but TJ was excited about the potential. Chloe was making rounds from bed to bed, checking pupil response with her penlight. James’s fever was down three degrees Fahrenheit, and she was breathing easily now. Hopefully the worst was past for her.

                Chloe almost didn’t notice him come in, but as she moved from James to Brody, she spotted Rush dragging a stool to sit next to Young’s bed. He looked even more tired than usual, the lines on his face scored deep. He dropped onto the stool and bent down to rest his head on his arm, on the bedside. It looked uncomfortable, but he didn’t move at all, and Chloe, when she approached, realized he had fallen asleep, his hand covering Young’s. She checked Young’s vitals and lines as quietly as possible, relieved that he was doing fine.

                Then she retreated to the other side of infirmary, to wait until TJ had news.

**Author's Note:**

> Outsider POV is my favorite romance trope, okay?


End file.
